Missing You - Help and Information

Missing You commenced late March 1998, and since that time we have been amazed at the level of demand for our service. Initially begun as a frustrated response to the lack of anything on the Internet that was of the remotest interest to UK citizens, this website has progressed from a back-bedroom spare-time hobby to become one of a growing number of specialist Internet publications owned by TMS Media of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Missing You founder Mike Murr, now Internet Director of TMS Media, continues to be very much involved in the ongoing development of the website and in September 2000 designed and introduced the MESSAGEMASTER software system to improve the service to message posters and casual browsers alike.

One of the best aspects of the instant posting system is that all the messages on our pages are original - this can make for lively reading, and we consider it goes a long way towards making the technology approachable and friendly.For the best opportunities to receive useful replies, try to ensure that you are posting your message to the correct category.If you have any geographical information, even if it's only a place of birth, you should select the correct region and enter any town/city information. If you have no geographical information at all, post to the No Regional Info category.If you failed your Geography exams (like me) and have no idea of whereabouts in the UK certain places are, don't worry if you get it wrong...When posting your message, try to ensure correct spelling of names and places, since people searching the database will be unlikely to chance upon an incorrectly spelt name.If you later realise you have made an error in your message, you can amend the message using the MESSAGEMASTER system.

Our website is very well indexed by all the major search engines and as such any messages posted to our site may also appear in search engine results for some time after they have been deleted from our system. Whilst there are measures that we can take to prevent this happening we feel that this would seriously hinder the usefulness of our site for the majority of users. We are not able to get individual entries removed from a search engines index, however they will normally disappear over time. If there is an urgent need to have a message removed i.e. for legal reasons etc, then it is your responsibility to contact the search engine(s) in question directly to make this request.

You can upload scanned photographs to accompany your message. The system will allow .jpg files of up to 30K file size. If you have limited experience of image scanning you may need to seek assistance to achieve suitable images, although even basic scanning software can output images without difficulty.To avoid lengthy page download times, photographs are not displayed on our database pages. The appearance of the camera icon adjacent to a message indicates to visitors that a photograph is available.
click this camera icon for a sample of the MESSAGEMASTER automatic image system in action.

Way back in 1998 we published email addresses with all messages. E-mail spamming was very rare then. More recently we became aware that our listings were being used by various pathetic individuals to bombard many of our message posters with unsolicited mail.As a responsible user of personal data - registered under the UK Data Protection Act - we guarantee that we will not use your mail address to send you irrelevant unsolicited mail, and we will not sell your address to junk mailers either. We severely dislike junk mailers. People posting messages on Missing You do not have to disclose their email addresses. Our discreet automatic reply system will send replies directly. We have had several postings where the e-mail address is obviously incorrect. Please be certain that your e-mail address is entered absolutely correctly, since obviously you cannot expect replies to reach you otherwise....

The service is confidential in as much that we do not share any information with any third parties other than occasionally with our sponsors. Please note, however, that details from our server log contain information concerning dates / times of postings and IP addresses thereof - these details would have to be made available in the event of any police or government investigations.

Although there are various UK address listings available on the Internet it is becoming common knowledge that they are, almost without exception, based upon information obtained from at least 6 month out of date voters rolls.

Whilst this information can still be useful, it can also be highly misleading. It should also be noted that from our own research we have found that some towns and districts appear to be entirely absent from certain listings!

People conducting paid research or professional "person finders" are quite welcome to use our message facilities to assist in the location of missing persons on behalf of their clients. It is reasonable to include your status within any messages, or at least the term "on behalf of". This does not entitle you to post advertisements for your services in our message boards.

The message posting service is intended to remain entirely free of charge to everyone, but if you subsequently claim a success fee as a direct result of using our service, we would appreciate a cheque for an appropriate proportion of your earnings. Please make cheques payable to our publisher TMS Media, address is given on our contact page

Our message posting service is provided in good faith and we trust message posters will respect this. We are unable to vouch for the bona fides or accuracy of any messages or the content therein. We will not be responsible for any consequence or loss sustained pending any message posted or replied to. We reserve the right to remove any message at our sole discretion.